May 24, 2004

Hi

    Thursday night, against my better judgment I went out on a date. Yes, that right. Here's how it all went
down.
   One night at work, I was watching two of my coworkers competing on Craigslist to see who could get
the most responses to their personal ads. When they left I was bored so I created a profile on Yahoo
Personals. It was free so I figured what the hell. I added a picture a couple weeks later and I got a couple
of responses, mostly from Russians. (I'm thinking Mail Order Brides) But lo and behold I got one from a
girl who seemed normal. According to her profile she was 5'11 and blond. We started swapping e-mails
and I found out she was a fashion designer. We spoke on the phone a couple of times and we set
something up for Thursday night.
   We went to a place near her apt in Willamsburg called Sea Thai Restaurant. It was a cool place and the
food was pretty good. Now the conversation lagged a bit at times, but I chalked that up to
circumstances. She was meeting with another fashion company in a couple of days and I had my first
reporting shift the next day. So we were both a bit distracted.
    She said that she had to make a conference call at 9 PM, so our date sort of ended there. I didn't
think much of it at first, but Sunday afternoon, I got an e-mail from her, saying that I was a "Nice Guy" I
should have stopped reading there but on I went. "I have been dating a variety of guys this past year and
over the weekend I decided to commit to one of them." And that one of them wasn't me. I was
elimidated!
    I read that as "It thought maybe I could meet someone better, but if you are what's out there, I better
get with this other guy."
    I started writing back to her that with her ability to write BS like that she could get a job with the
Pentagon writing press releases, (Only to be stopped by my buddy Chris at work) I realize now that the 9
PM conference call was the way to get rid of me in case I didn't look like Brad Pitt.
   I'm not really mad at her though. She handled it as classy as the situation would allow. I'm mad at
myself for allowing myself to get sucked in to this whole mess in the first place. When I started working
at the Post, I made up my mind to focus on my career and to worry only about things I can control. I
can't believe I allowed myself to get off that course. Well, no worries, I'm back on the straight and
narrow. This nonsense is over.

      Saturday, I worked till 2 then went to Social for a cocktail or 6. They put the lights on around 3:30,
but Alan and the owner told me to take my time, and finish my beers. I went to the can before leaving
and when I came back up, they had already locked the doors and started mopping. I haven't achieved
V.I.P status there yet so they asked me to leave.
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This past week, the 9/11 commission met here in New York City to interview, amongst others, the
commissioners of both the FDNY and the NYPD, both the current ones and the ones in charge on
September 11, 2001. Very similar to what happened when the hearings were in Washington D.C, there
was an awful lot of finger pointing.
It's getting ridiculous.

    This commission if done correctly, could be an incredible tool to help the war on terrorism. If done
correctly, it could find ways to streamline intelligence so that it would be easier to determine who the bad
guys are and where they are planning to attack. It could help bring funds to our city, and other major U.S.
cities, so that our brave firefighters and police officers will be better equipped if heaven forbid
something like this should ever happen again. It could come up with a comprehensive airport security
plan, so that 19 people can't easily get on a plane with box cutters, hijack the plane, and crash it into a
skyscraper.
    Instead, it has turned into a charade of name calling and finger pointing that has all parties involved
looking to cover themselves rather than fix the problems at hand. Even Rudy Guliani, universally
regarded as the man who kept the city together (and a man whom I personally don't care for) has come
under fire.
This commission has turned counterproductive.
    The bottom line is very simple. The blame for 9/11 rests on Osama Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda. Yes, it's
obvious both Presidents Clinton and Bush made some very critical errors in judgments and executions in
their pursuit of Al-Qaeda, but when President Bush says he would have moved "heaven and earth" to
stop 9/11, I believe him. And when President Clinton says he thought he had Bin Laden cornered in
Afghanistan in August, 1998, I tend to believe that too.
    The people who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, are entitled to know what went wrong. Their
frustrations are boiling over and who can blame them? It's almost 3 years later, and they probably have
more questions than they do answers. I can't begin to speak for these poor people, some of whom I
count as friends. But my guess would be, if this 9/11 commission, can get somebody to stand up and
say "This is what went wrong, and this is how we are fixing it" I can't help but think that would even just a
little bit ease their pain.

Speaking of 9/11, Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" took top honors at the Cannes Film Festival.
Wow, an anti-American film taking top honors at a French film festival, who could have predicted that?

    These NBA Playoffs have produced a couple of very exciting games. Game 5 of both the Nets-
Pistons and Spurs-Lakers series were both classics, with the former going to triple OT and the latter
ending with a buzzer beating bucket taken with 0.4 seconds left.
    Unfortunately I missed both games. Mainly because I'm not as into basketball as I used to be, but
also because the scheduling of these games have been absurd. At least twice in the Nets-Pistons series,
there were 4 days between games. 4 days! It took nearly 3 weeks to play the entire series. And there
have been some nights where there have been no games scheduled at all? What gives? Is David Stern
trying to make Game 7 of the Finals coincide with the Fourth of July?

    The Stanley Cup Finals will match the Calgary Flames vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning. It may set an all
time record for low ratings, but it could be a hell of a series. And it should serve as a lesson that
spending tons of $$$$ will not necessarily bring success, if that lesson hasn't been drilled home by the
Rangers the past seven years.

And I don't want to jinx it, but the Mets have reached the .500 mark.

    Our old friend and 1995 Bartender of the Year Award winner Chris Santangelo made his long awaited
debut on the Sopranos last night. Its the scene where Christopher is in the gas station, about 42 minutes
or so into the show.(It will be replayed on HBO2 Monday night at 10 PM.)
Congrats to one of Woodside's finest citizens.

That's all from here friends
Have a Great Week
Bill